Mario Kart Tour Announced For Smartphones

The next smartphone game from Nintendo will race into smart devices by March of next year.

Mario Kart Tour was announced for smartphones at Nintendo's strategy meeting tonight. The game is slated to launch by the end of the next fiscal year (April -> March 2019). No other information is available.

Where's the Zelda game they said they were working on a year ago? I wonder, is Nintendo really taking their time with this stuff or are they having some difficulties? Sometimes, it feels like they're having more trouble developing phone games than they are the AAA behemonths like Super Mario Odyssey.

Nintendo isn’t having difficulties. The company’s mobile offerings are smaller games with smaller budgets developed by smaller teams. Switch is just more of a priority. More importantly, Nintendo is right where it said it wanted to be. It released Miitomo and Super Mario Run in 2016 then released Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp in 2017. Nintendo has previously stated that it wants to release two to three mobile games a year.

I suppose we’ll see how 2018 shakes out as far as that strategy is concerned. Only Mario Kart Tour is officially announced, and it may not release this year. Who knows how far along Zelda is though it seems more appropriate to unveil at E3.

Nintendo isn’t having difficulties. The company’s mobile offerings are smaller games with smaller budgets developed by smaller teams. Switch is just more of a priority. More importantly, Nintendo is right where it said it wanted to be. It released Miitomo and Super Mario Run in 2016 then released Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp in 2017. Nintendo has previously stated that it wants to release two to three mobile games a year.

I suppose we’ll see how 2018 shakes out as far as that strategy is concerned. Only Mario Kart Tour is officially announced, and it may not release this year. Who knows how far along Zelda is though it seems more appropriate to unveil at E3.

Yeah, if they put out a Zelda mobile and Mario Kart this year they'd be on pace. I'd say they're sticking to the plan pretty well. Plus, there's always the possibility they're working on something they're not talking about.

Nintendo isn’t having difficulties. The company’s mobile offerings are smaller games with smaller budgets developed by smaller teams. Switch is just more of a priority. More importantly, Nintendo is right where it said it wanted to be. It released Miitomo and Super Mario Run in 2016 then released Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp in 2017. Nintendo has previously stated that it wants to release two to three mobile games a year.

I suppose we’ll see how 2018 shakes out as far as that strategy is concerned. Only Mario Kart Tour is officially announced, and it may not release this year. Who knows how far along Zelda is though it seems more appropriate to unveil at E3.

In separate Japanese newspaper interviews, CEO Tatsumi Kimishima confirmed the plan to release at least four mobile titles in calendar 2017 and onward. An interview with the Kyoto Shimbun paper originally reported "2-3 per year", but a separate interview with the Sankei newspaper quoted Kimishima as saying there would be "more than three" internally developed Nintendo mobile titles per year.

Nintendo is scaling back their mobile plans slightly for the fiscal year.

In an interview with Time Magazine, Shigeru Miyamoto discussed Nintendo's mobile strategy. A follow-up email from Miyamoto confirmed that a combination of development time and "market conditions" would mean only four mobile titles would release by March 2017. The four titles would be Miitomo, Super Mario Run and the unnamed Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem projects.

Clearly their plans are in flux. Doesn't help that they keep changing from fiscal year to calendar year and back again. No matter how you slice it, they'v never released more than two.

I had forgotten that Zelda was never officially announced by Nintendo. It was thought to be the unnamed title by Miyamoto that was delayed/fell by the wayside. I wonder if the reaction to BOTW contributed to that. As in, "We really can't mess this up now!"

Clearly their plans are in flux. Doesn't help that they keep changing from fiscal year to calendar year and back again. No matter how you slice it, they'v never released more than two.

That’s fair though I don’t think that implies Nintendo is having difficulties. It could crap out a bunch of subpar titles very easily. Releasing the right games that take advantage of and cater to mobile platforms seems to be a priority. Going back to your previous post, I lean toward the company taking its time mostly since mobile, while important, is still less important than Switch. The intention was always to encourage that audience into the Nintendo ecosystem. I wonder if Switch is doing some of that on its own.